Railer girls edge KMC

Tuesday

Jan 29, 2013 at 8:03 AMJan 29, 2013 at 8:03 AM

By Mark Schnabel Newton Kansan

Wins against top-ranked teams are rarely easy, so when the Newton High School girls’ basketball team broke to a big lead against Kapaun-Mt. Carmel Saturday in the third-place game of the 37th Newton Invitational, it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. The Railers withstood the late comeback, hitting enough free throws down the stretch for a 48-44 win. Newton, 10-2, rebounded from a drilling at the hands of Bishop Miege the night before. Kapaun dropped its second straight game, falling to 10-2. “Last night, that wasn’t our best game, but Miege is good,” Newton coach Randy Jordan said. “We talked during the shootaround and before the game about responding to adversity, and we really did. We showed a lot of heart, a lot of passion. We executed our stuff a lot better. We guarded a lot better.” Junior forward Hannah Carlgren led the Railers with 19 points, hitting 11 of 13 free throws. Jacque Anderson and Taylor Stahly added seven points each. “I just wanted to go out and do what I can to help the team,” Carlgren said. “They were ranked no. 1 in the state. I wanted to go out and show we could win. We showed them tonight. They double-teamed on Abbie (Lehman) tonight. That left me open a lot. I went to the free throw line something like 14 times. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. I made 11. They definitely needed to defend Abbie, but that left other people open. This was a stacked tournament with teams like Kapaun, Miege and (Olathe) Northwest. We wanted to show what we could do.” “We’re trying to use Hannah more in the screen and roll situation, but we don’t always roll her to the basket because she has good reach,” Jordan said. “She did a nice job of screening through somebody and finding an open spot. If her girl helped out on the on-ball, Hannah did a good job of getting open. Abbie (Lehman) guarded (Sydney Kuhn) unbelievably well. Emily (Hiebert) guarded (Molly McAuliffe) well.” The Railers hit 12 of 28 from the field, 11 of 22 through the first three quarters. Newton had 18 turnovers to 10 for Kapaun. Kapaun had just two turnovers in the second half. The Crusaders were 14 of 45 shooting. Sydney Kuhn led the Crusaders with 17 points. Sam Bachrodt added 10 points. Newton jumped out to a 7-3 lead, but struggled the rest of the quarter with fouls and turnovers the rest of the period. A Hannah Carlgren jumper on the line banked in with two seconds left in the quarter to put Newton ahead 11-7. Newton led by as many as 13 early in the second quarter. Kapaun pulled within 10 late, but the Railers ended the quarter on a 4-1 run to lead 29-16 at intermission. Newton missed its first two shots of the second half, then turned the ball over, leading to Kapaun scoring the first five points of the second half. Newton called a time out, but then turned the ball over again. After a Crusader layup off a steal, Taylor Stahly broke the run with a trey with 4:12 remaining in the quarter. Newton led 37-27 at the end of the quarter. Carlgren opened the fourth quarter with a jumper. Newton missed several chances to increase its lead, but started taking ill-advised shots. Still the Railers held Kapaun scoreless for more than three minutes. Kuhn broke the Kapaun drought with one of two free throws with 4:16 remaining. Hagen scored Kapaun’s first field goal with 2:50 remaining. Hagen hit one of two free throws with 2:02 in regulation to cut Newton’s lead to nine. Carlgren answered with one of two free throws with 1:31 in regulation. A Bachrodt trey with 41.0 seconds remaining cut the Railer lead to seven. Newton missed the front end of a one-and-bonus. Bachrodt then hit three of three free throws 12 seconds later. Newton came back with three of four free throws. Janay Jacobs hit a trey for Kapaun with 12.8 seconds remaining. Carlgren hit two free throws with 10.6 seconds to play to put the Railers up by six. Kuhn hit a layup at the buzzer for Kapaun. Newton hosts Maize at 6 p.m. today at Ravenscroft Gym. Maize is 11-1, winning the Shawnee Heights Invitational 52-44 over Wichita Heights. The Eagles moved up to second in the Class 6A coaches poll. “They have two legitimate Division I players,” Jordan said. “They like to dribble-drive, a lot like Miege and Kapaun. We just have to close the driving lanes down. Abbie will have a good match-up inside. We have to find a way to slow (Paige) Lungwitz down. It will take the whole team to stop her.” “They’re ranked pretty high,” Carlgren said. “They are a very good team. We just have to come out and show what we can do. We all came out really intense. We need to do that again.”